


no one else but you tonight

by pulses



Category: NCT (Band), SM Rookies
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Cameos from other NCT U members and Tony Stark apparently, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulses/pseuds/pulses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In fact, Johnny realizes, the state of Illinois hasn’t had any claim to superpowered fame since Kitty Pryde made it to the X-Men. Whatever it is in that New York City water has yet to make it westward, and so an intangible mutant from Deerfield is the full extent of how much Illinois brings itself to care.</p><p>Johnny can’t exactly phase through walls, but at least now he knows how to climb them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no one else but you tonight

**Author's Note:**

> SO WHAT IF SPIDEY WERE FROM CHI-TOWN INSTEAD OF QUEENS, NY?
> 
> the idea behind peter parker’s spider-man is still there, but his timeline has been generously modified for the sake of johnny’s own narrative (such as the inclusion of organic web-shooting—sorry johnny, not trying to doubt your genius!—and some borrowing from the mcu/earth-1610). assume that the actual peter parker of earth-616 is just a normal kid, but all other superheroes have not been tampered with.
> 
> in addition, a few of the characters have been aged up so that everyone can be in high school at the same time. ten, johnny, and jaehyun are seniors, while mark is a freshman. i decided to make this fic revolve around the #foreignswaggers because it takes place in the good ol' us of a. title taken from [true love - we are twin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIlxFfMpFKo).
> 
> \- a

Johnny doesn’t know why the radioactive spider chose him, of all people. 

See: Chicago might be known for many things, wind and eccentric pizza dishes included, but being the place to _be_ for aspiring superheroes isn’t exactly one of them. It’s an accepted constant, really. It is. Has been since half a century ago, when New York City first established itself as the Avengers’ hub and thus became a primary attractor of evildoing and fantastical crime. (Thanks for nothing, Captain America.)

In fact, Johnny realizes, the state of Illinois hasn’t had any claim to superpowered fame since Kitty Pryde made it to the X-Men. Whatever it is in that New York City water has yet to make it westward, and so an intangible mutant from Deerfield is the full extent of how much Illinois brings itself to care.

Johnny can’t exactly phase through walls, but at least now he knows how to climb them.

 

*

 

It starts like this.

“No,” Johnny mouths, when he realizes with growing horror what the _thing_ growing on his hand is. “This can’t be happening.” Because there lies a red welt half the length of a quarter, and Johnny isn’t generally afraid of spiders but he is beginning to feel a little light-headed at the size of it. It’s a very, very aggressive welt. His heart emits a low, frenzied thrum, and the noise overpowers him, leaving him dizzy and anxious. 

Is he supposed to see a doctor for this? How often do people die from spider bites around here? 

Nonplussed, Johnny does exactly what a responsible seventeen-year-old would be expected to in his situation. Instead of calling 911, he dials up Jaehyun and whimpers, _"Please_ get over here, I think I’m dying.” Then he hangs up, buries his face into one of his couch’s throw pillows, and spends the next few minutes resolutely not sparing a glance at the monstrous swelling of his left hand.

 

 

When Jaehyun makes his way up, Johnny hears rather than sees the door to the apartment open. Suddenly he finds himself intensely grateful to his past self for having given Jaehyun a spare key.

“Johnny, _what_ —” Jaehyun starts, sounding alarmed, only—

 _“Look,”_ Johnny cuts in. It’s probably a matter of life-or-death here; there are really no questions to be asked. He waves a frantic hand, voice muffled by fabric, and hopes that the angle is right for Jaehyun to catch what will probably be the cause of his premature demise. “A spider bit me!”

“I… Johnny,” goes Jaehyun. “Are you hallucinating? Look at me. How many fingers am I holding up?”

At that, Johnny sits up in a panic. Jaehyun is clutching his phone in one hand, but the other flashes four fingers, thumb tucked against the palm, and when Johnny’s eyes travel upward Jaehyun has a concentrated look of worry fixed across his face. “Really,” Jaehyun insists. “How many?”

“Four,” Johnny mumbles, brow furrowed. The pounding of his heart is just starting to subside, and when he looks down—the bite. 

Is gone.

Sure, he can make out a tiny red dot if he squints, but otherwise… 

“What the hell?” he says. “I swear, there was—just a few minutes ago. It was _huge_ , I don’t understand—”

Jaehyun pats him on the shoulder. A smooth, placating gesture. “I’m sure,” he says. “Why don’t you just, uh, lie back down for a bit. You’re looking kind of pale.”

“I’m serious! I wouldn’t have called you all the way here if it wasn’t serious, would I?”

“First of all, yes, you would. Second of all, I live literally one block away, so— _oh my God._ ”

Jaehyun lets out a startled squeak. A few feet left of his head is a miniscule fly, a fact that wouldn’t be so out of the ordinary if it weren’t currently _stuck to the wall by inexplicable webbing_. Webbing that, studying the way his arm seems to have instinctively stretched out—a hair-trigger reflex he doesn’t remember having—Johnny realizes with a sinking feeling to his gut might have come from _him_. 

“No,” Johnny says again, this time with added emphasis. Jaehyun gives him a look that borders on queasy. 

Johnny finds that he can relate, wholeheartedly.

“Is this new?” asks Jaehyun. “I mean, this is a recent development, right?” His voice comes out shell-shocked, like that of a man who has just managed to avoid getting hit in the face by... mutant spider-webbing? What is this, even?

“Don’t tell anyone,” Johnny forces. “I’m going to figure this out.” 

It’s automatic, of course; Johnny has no fucking clue how he’s going to figure this out. His voice shakes when he stresses that last syllable, and for a worrying moment Johnny doesn’t know who, exactly, he’s trying to convince here.

 

 

After a prolonged freakout that gets the neighbor to their left banging on the wall, Jaehyun finally leaves him to his own devices. Johnny’s first order of business is to pry the webbing off so that it’s not the first thing the next person who walks into the living room (read: his parents, home from a work event) will be forced to come face-to-face with. Then, when all visible traces of his current dilemma are gone and he can finally take a few seconds to _breathe_ , Johnny immediately proceeds to have two thoughts.

One: _Is it because my parents named me after the Human Torch?_

And, two: _Fate wouldn’t really be that cruel, would it?_

Distressingly, the answer to that is beginning to look a lot like yes.

Johnny very much does not have the time for this. He has college applications to submit and scholarships to vy for. Plus, there is a pile of schoolwork he has yet to touch because he spent the latter half of his Sunday worrying over how he can suddenly do things like _hang from the ceiling_ and shoot literal webbing out his wrists whenever he feels stressed. 

His reflexes have never been this good, or unpredictable. Ever. 

Basically, Johnny is 90% certain nothing can benefit from this. Except, he concedes, for maybe his League rank. And his propensity for not getting hit by reckless drivers in the middle of busy Chicago intersections.

Still, though—the whole “unforeseen spider-powers” thing is proving inconvenient. No part of his seventeen years on earth could have prepared him for this. He’s read a few of the fancomics as a kid, sure, read about superhero involvement and mutants in his history books, but he’s never been the type to delve deep into superhero conspiracy or idolize the Avengers’ every move. Which ultimately means most of what he knows about the bubble of superhumans is that Iron Man is rich, powerful, can shoot beams from his fucking chest, and that Captain America has a pretty sick shield.

So Johnny does what he knows best. He closes the Google tab that reads, “a spider bit me and now i can climb walls????,” and goes straight to the expert.

 _Hey, Mark,_ he texts. _What exactly can you tell me about superhero origins?_

 

*

 

“What do you need info on? F4? X-Men? Inhumans? If you’re asking for those new wannabe-Avengers then I don’t know much about them either, sorry. Although I did find the Kat Farrell report on the Daily Bugle’s website for reference, so I’m open to discussion.”

“No, Mark, slow dow—wait, actually. X-Men. That’s mutants, right?”

Mark makes a noise like he’s judging Johnny, just a little bit, but doesn’t want it to show. “Yes, bro. X-Men, X-Factor, and what have you.”

Mark Lee is a bit of an awkward, precocious kid. Barely fourteen and new to high school, but he’s been around long enough that he’s become their friend group’s unofficial younger brother, the boy who lives around the corner and manages to fit in with just enough youthful charm and slapstick humor.

He’s also the newest addition to their school’s Avengers Fanclub, run by a senior named Taeyong. (“One time Iron Man signed his _arm_ ,” Mark has previously informed them. Multiple times.) And he really, really likes superheroes. 

“Okay,” Johnny says. “So if someone were to like, hypothetically be bitten by a s—an animal? A maybe, hypothetically genetically-modified animal. Could that trigger powers related to that animal? Hypothetically?”

“Uhh, the mutation is generally exposed through high-stress situations during puberty, so I guess? But, related to that animal?” Gradual, pensive silence. “I’d say it’s more that scientific modification directly affecting the recipient’s body. Exposure to radiation can do that—look at Daredevil, for example.”

“So… this wouldn’t be a mutant case?”

“No,” Mark says slowly. “I mean, who knows? Radiation can do all sorts of things. But the X-Gene, which is what sets mutants apart, is genetic. You’re, uh, born with it. This sounds like a clear cause-and-effect, mutate kind of sitch.” 

Johnny rubs at his temples. Why him, of all people, again? “Okay. Thanks, bro. This was helpful.”

“Is that all?” Mark asks. “I mean, I have Geometry homework to do, so.”

He sounds very serious about it.

“Dude, yeah. That’s no joke,” Johnny says, and he’s chuckling a bit when he hangs up. 

They grow up so fast, he thinks.

 

*

 

Really, the problem with his newfound superpowers is that Johnny doesn’t exactly have a suitable backstory for them to go with. His mother first emigrated from South Korea when she was eighteen to study at the University of Chicago, where she met his father and gave birth to Johnny nine years later. It’s a straightforward history. He’s an only child; still has happily-married parents, good grades; is maybe hopelessly in love with his best friend of fifteen years (no, not Jaehyun. The other one. We’ll get there in a second), which is to be expected, considering all good things in life warrant a catch. 

Overall, life has been irrefutably gentle with him. A little boring, sure—but he has college to start living it up.

“Is this going to be a thing?” Jaehyun asks. They’re both looking at yet another mass of webbing, Johnny somewhat more forlornly, which has this time managed to glue one of Johnny’s desk drawers shut. He is not having a good week. “You know that if you get your powers under control, you could actually do something with them, right? Like, this is a big deal.”

“I know,” Johnny grumbles. Of course it’s a big deal. But Johnny _isn’t_ , so where does that leave him?

This is bigger than him, and Johnny has never been prone to involving himself with that kind of stuff. That’s Jaehyun’s job; as class president and future valedictorian, as aspiring law student and general advocate for all things good and of worth. But with great power comes… great responsibility, or whatever, and Johnny has no idea what to do with it.

“Just know,” Jaehyun starts, “that whatever you do, I’ll help you through it. And that I unearthed my mom’s sewing kit yesterday, so I’m ready to get down to business.”

“Hey, wait—I need a name first,” says Johnny, laughing, but secretly he’s never been more grateful.

 

 

“Okay, hear me out: _Spider-Man._ Like Iron Man, but for spiders.”

“No, yeah, I got that,” Jaehyun says. 

They’re sitting in Jaehyun’s room this time, empty sheet of poster paper spilled over their Econ homework. Johnny twirls the ballpoint in his fingers. “Thoughts? Critiques?” 

“You mean, ignoring the fact that you’re seventeen and very much not a man?” Jaehyun asks. He leans over to stencil it in in big block letters, a messy teenage-boy scrawl so unlike everything Jaehyun that Johnny often finds indecipherable but has too much heart to tell him otherwise. (Just kidding. It’s a great source of amusement for both him and Ten.) He doodles a little cartoon spider next to the _SPIDER-MAN._ “I guess it works.”

“Don’t front,” Johnny grumbles. Then, “Design me my costume already, why don’t you.” 

Jaehyun rolls his eyes at that. “Yeah, okay,” he surrenders, scoffing, and he pulls the paper firmly out of Johnny’s grasp so he can start getting his thoughts down.

 

 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the tale of Spider-Man begins.

 

*

 

It’s a joke, at first. Nothing more than a distraction from everything senior year has been. They’d thought eleventh grade was hard enough, but the first few weeks of October Jaehyun and Johnny and Ten (yes, that other best friend of fifteen years) find themselves busier than ever, slogging away at what feels like endless piles of schoolwork and college essays. 

“I never want to look at this script ever again,” says Ten, from where he’s stretched out on Johnny’s couch, running through lines with him. “Is it my fault Mrs. Macbeth can’t hold our marriage together? Do I deserve the secrecy and betrayal?” His hands have a slight tremor to them, and he pauses, concentrating on his script (which is, naturally, _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_ made _Macbeth_ ; the theatre department’s theme is dubiously “modern” this year, fall and spring plays alike) like he’s praying for his grip on it to not falter.

Johnny gets up to bring him a glass of water. “Ten...” he asks slowly, like he's not sure he wants to. “How much coffee have you had, exactly?” 

“Um,” Ten responds, very intelligibly. He blinks. “It’s fine! Only like three cups? I just haven’t slept in a while!”

He looks stressed. And—sure, they all do, but Johnny’s chest still twinges at the sight. Ten is like that for him: something grounded, something that takes his mind off of things like being _Spider-Man_ because when he’s around he’s all Johnny knows to think of. 

It’s a Friday night, so Johnny goes, “Why don’t you sleep over? We’ll run over lines tomorrow.” It’s been a while since they’ve had a night to themselves like this, and Jaehyun might be at home but Johnny will take what he can get.

“It’s been a while,” Ten echoes. “Okay.” 

He’s mumbling, a sleepy slur to his words, but his tone is agreeable. Johnny’s about to help him up, get them ready for bed, but when he looks down moments later he sees that Ten has already managed to fall asleep. He knows Ten will complain in the morning because the couch always leaves his neck sore, but Johnny finds himself incapable of disturbing him; loses himself in the curve of Ten’s eyelashes and how he always snores despite being loath to admit it, and all Johnny can do is bring over a pillow and a blanket and slink back to his own bedroom.

So, yes. That’s the boy he’s in love with.

 

*

 

Like any friend group that’s spent nearly two decades growing up together, they have a backstory. Of course. 

When Johnny is two, in memories so hazy he can only recall from meticulously-catalogued baby photobooks and stories told over family dinners, his mother insists on welcoming Jaehyun’s to the neighborhood, and the two boys begin spending most of their infant days together. Jaehyun had been new to the area, byproduct of a tentative move from Korea on behalf of his father’s work, and in northern suburban Illinois Korean-American communities are tight like _that_ , so.

The arrangement works best because their parents are still young enough to enjoy late-night romantic dinners every now and then, which means Johnny gets used to being babysat by Jaehyun’s parents, and vice-versa.

Johnny is pretty sure he’s called Jaehyun’s mom _eomma_ more times than he can care to count. 

As for Ten, Johnny and Jaehyun meet him at a park. Years later no one really knows how that one happened, except that when they start school the teachers find the three of them inseparable, and it somehow continues on even in high school. There’s a picture of them in first grade, cheek against cheek, grinning wide and childish on a field trip while Ten flashes his two missing front teeth. They’re at Shedd Aquarium and behind them a huge stingray is spread out up by Jaehyun’s head, an unexpected photobomb they didn’t realize until the camera had gone off. It’s just about Johnny’s favorite photo of them.

Eighth grade, Mark becomes their friend-slash-favorite _dongsaeng_ when he moves to Illinois from his hometown of Vancouver and Johnny and Jaehyun are conscribed to walking that new kid to their Korean youth group every Sunday. 

Ninth grade, they’re thrown into high school the same year Mark Officially Grows Up (read: enters middle school). Several things happen that year. One, they all develop a shared hatred of ninth grade biology. Two, Jaehyun discovers debate club; Johnny’s voice finally decides to stop cracking; and Ten breaks his arm on a winter ski trip, snowballing down a black diamond piste he should have never been on in the first place. The three of them find themselves in that in-between zone, where they’re painfully young but grasping at what it means to conceptualize your future in concrete goals and an actually tangible narrative.

Jaehyun maybe gets the hang of it first. 

They lose him to the crunch of after-school ASB council meetings and the odd JV basketball practice by tenth grade. Johnny and Ten lack any sort of concrete definition to the direction of their extracurriculars because—they’re fifteen, for God’s sake, and Johnny is too busy not caring about the future to know that he’ll become captain of the very same team the next year, not because he has any sort of talent for basketball but more so because he’s tall enough to dunk without needing to leave his feet and these days athletic involvement takes you far with the admissions officers.

As a result, Johnny and Ten end up coordinating their semi-randomized club signups together. It means that they both join a science club that runs until 5 on Wednesdays and have band practice twice a week after 7th period, a joke of a group formed through Ten’s sheer musical ability and Johnny’s occasional willingness to strum at a guitar alone. Ten and Johnny move through the year together, joined at the hip throughout every high school hallway and dusty clubroom the way fifteen-year-old best friends are, and it becomes habit for the two of them to head home together at the end of the day. 

(It’s a walk that used to be them and Jaehyun, since you don’t spend thirteen years growing up in the same neighborhood for nothing. But Johnny finds that he doesn’t mind just the two of them, either.)

 

 

That’s where Johnny learns it all—how everything about Ten in tenth grade is both awkward grins full of braces and that burn in your eyes when you try to stare directly into the sun. How Ten in tenth grade has the easiest laugh in the world. It always comes out during their walks home, while they make small talk and Johnny kicks around at the stones, Ten’s nose crinkling with the motion. Johnny is still half-boy and half-teenager, and he thinks there’s nothing that screams it like the way he loses himself in Ten’s laugh, that drawn-out sound that sometimes manages to startle Ten himself in its vigor.

The months fade into April. Johnny is sixteen now, and Ten is still the boy next door. Ten smiles through a mouthful of steel wires and Johnny is kind of in love. 

Isn’t that how all the teen stories go?

 

 

“This is nice,” says Ten. It’s a Wednesday, on a rare sunny afternoon, which is spring weather they’re not always privy to out in Chicago.

Johnny feels warm enough that he has his hoodie tied around his waist. He looks down—always down, because Johnny hit a huge growth spurt in middle school and now towers over Ten, which makes his heart do a funny little thing he doesn’t enjoy dissecting. “It is, isn’t it,” Johnny agrees, humming, and he wishes things could stay this way.

 

 

At the start of eleventh grade, Taeil Moon tracks Johnny down before Physics and shoves a robotics team flyer in his face. 

“You guys placed well on the Science Bowl last year,” he explains, “and we need fresh talent. I’ve been trying to get Jaehyun to sign up forever, but his schedule is way too hectic for _me_ , even.”

(Jaehyun isn’t even in their club. Clearly his reputation precedes him.)

“Uh, okay?” Johnny says, although it’s less an agreement and more an acknowledgment that he’s being spoken to. 

Knowing Taeil, that’s really all he had to say.

Taeil is a senior who’d moved from Seoul only weeks before entering the tenth grade and managed to rise to captain ranks by the time the year was over. He’s basically just an all-around convincing guy, and once he’s got you in his sights it’s pretty impossible to refuse him, at least where robotics are concerned.

“Great!” he says, beaming. “You’re welcome to bring that friend of yours too, by the way. We meet at the robotics lab every Friday after school. See you there!” Then he bounces off in a hurry and Johnny briefly wonders whether he really did just agree to an essentially two-year extracurricular commitment on the spot.

He figures it isn’t high school without one.

So Johnny drags Ten to robotics with him and learns, steadily, that he has the knack for it. Taeil is visibly pleased; tells him to join the C++ tutoring hours so that he can also help with the programming side. There’s something mindless about it that Johnny enjoys the most. The hours spent with a dozen or so other students testing and tailoring a product that runs on their own prompting, of their own accord.

Two months in though, Ten burns himself soldering wires together for the third time in an hour alone and has the revelation of a lifetime.

“What the fuck?” He turns to Johnny, tenderly holding his index finger where he’d been burnt. “I hate math. And _science_ , fucking science,” he says. As if it’s just occurring to him. As if they haven’t been his worst subjects since _middle school_. 

Johnny hands him a wet towel. 

“Yeah,” he says, because sometimes that’s all there is to say. Then Ten sits up on a nearby table, watches Johnny adjust his safety glasses, laughs, and makes him fix the wires for him.

 

 

When they’re walking home from the lab, Ten admits, “I want to audition for the school musical next semester.” He wrings his hands nervously as he says it, because whenever Ten expresses himself it’s an unintentionally full-body thing. Hands and mouth and shoulders and everything.

Johnny has always known that Ten likes theater; he has a poster of the _Chicago_ cast on his wall and knows the words to every song from _The Book of Mormon_ , questionably enough, to which he likes to sing along at full volume on longer car rides. 

He thinks Ten was kind of made for New York because of it.

Really, the only time they’ve ever been was the day tenth grade ended—when they told their parents they were staying at Jaehyun’s for the weekend before sneaking into the back of a Greyhound, bags empty save for cash, ID, and snacks to last the trip. 

Busing to the East Coast is far from cheap; it had taken months of Ten’s weekly allowances and Johnny’s diligent weekend tutoring gig to make the cut. But there is a certain thrill to traveling when you’re sixteen and all you know past Chicago is your one aunt with the cats who lives in the suburbs outside Detroit, and when Johnny is sixteen the love of his life takes him to New York, of all places, puts his hand in his and points at the flashing billboards that make Broadway and goes, “This is where I want to be.”

So Johnny has known, all along. But what he’s never known is whether there’s a reason Ten has yet to pursue more artistic inclinations, the only exception being their band last year that dissolved once their senior bassist, a boy named Kevin, graduated and left for Ohio.

It doesn’t seem like something you can just bring up casually, so Johnny’s never thought to ask.

He clears his throat. “You should, then.”

“Yeah,” Ten says resolutely.

“Is it… like, would your parents mind?” Johnny asks, since it doesn’t seem like Ten’s parents to begrudge him of any interests. 

Ten looks up, blinking. “Huh? No, it’s not that.” He frowns, and it creases its way all along the lines of his forehead. “I guess I just, never thought I _could_ , you know? I just—thought. How am I ever going to be me? How _could_ that be me? I thought—how am I ever going to make it if I don’t start off in STEM, and I guess I never really made it past that.”

“Oh,” says Johnny, eloquent as always. 

Ten’s face is open and raw, mouth parted like he’d poured enough pieces of himself into the confession that the weight is stuck there now, leaving it hanging. 

Johnny looks at him, heart caught in his throat. He is viscerally reminded of the both of them sitting on Ten’s bed together: how Ten will look up and trace the lines of his _Chicago_ poster and go, _Do you see any Thai actors here?_

It’s not a matter of want, with them. Johnny thinks of Captain America, so very tall and broad and all-American apple pie on Christmas mornings. A face propagandized through anti-Asian World War movements. A face that screams, _This is America_ , only. Blond-haired, blue-eyed America, celebrated in all of its star-spangled glory. Johnny searches through the look Ten is sporting and he thinks—he thinks of Mark. Mark, who finds Iron Man cool, sure, but who he really idolizes is some guy named Amadeus Cho, that rare diasporic Asian kid who’d said: fuck med school. I’m going to be a superhero. 

It had never been a matter of want, with them. Doubt, though. Doubt had always seem feasible. 

So yeah, he gets it.

“Seriously,” Johnny tells him, slowly, like he’s still gathering his thoughts. “I know high school’s all about, like, discovery. Or whatever. And we’ve done a lot of that together. But you’re one of my best friends, and I only have two, and nothing can change that. You love this shit, so you should go for it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else does or thinks or wants. We’ve got now, and we’ve got college.” He exhales. “So just—do now. Do you, is what I’m trying to say. I got your back and everything.”

Ten makes a noise in the back of his throat. The blinking turns more furious. “Why did you have to go and make it sappy?” He whines, looking entirely too petulant.

“Are you—oh my God, are you crying?” Johnny demands, peering at Ten. And yep, those are definitely the start of a few tears marching their way down his cheeks. Ten tells him to shut up, wipes his palms all over his face in that messy, unbridled way of his. 

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Come here, you baby,” he says. He pulls Ten into a hug, and Ten goes willingly: years of trust built upon years of trust built upon the very core of their friendship, or whatever the hell, all of it finally melding into this very moment.

Jaehyun would probably laugh if he knew Johnny had willingly subjected himself to this, arms lax around the boy of his dreams, yada yada.

But.

What Jaehyun doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

 

 

Taeil, being Taeil, ends up having an immediate solution for Ten’s change of heart. “Our design team is rather understaffed this year!” he exclaims, and subsequently siccs Ten onto Dongyoung, a doe-eyed junior who captains the artistic direction of the build process. 

“I’m still auditioning for the musical next semester, though,” Ten threatens. 

“Of course,” says Taeil, smooth as ever. “It’s theater; I’m sure the red hair will go over just great.” 

And it does. A month before champs, Ten and Johnny dye their hair a blinding shade of red together—a mistake of a school color, really—and Jaehyun laughs at Johnny for an entire week before a group of theater girls walk up to Ten and tell him it complements his skin tone.

“Why haven’t you made fun of Ten yet?” Johnny demands, from where he’s watching Ten shyly field compliments by the lockers.

“I mean,” Jaehyun says, shrugging. “I don’t necessarily disagree with them.”

Which—is the start of _that_.

(Secretly, neither does Johnny. Red is a universally-accepted awful choice of hair color—or at least, _this_ shade of red, just trust him—but somehow it manages to look half-decent on Ten. Or maybe he’s just biased. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Either way, it becomes a great source of torment for the rest of his junior year.)

 

*

 

Back in his room, Jaehyun has several bobby pins stolen covertly from his mother’s bedside drawer hanging out his mouth. In his hands lie oceans of fabric, red and blue seeping through the gaps of his fingers.

“Okay,” he says, to no one in particular. “Let’s do this.” 

He pulls out a needle, expression heavy and focused.

Then he opens YouTube and pulls up the “Advanced Sewing Techniques” video he’s been using as reference for the past two hours.

Never let it be said that Jaehyun isn’t a good best friend.

 

 

“Have you considered costuming for the play Ten is in?” Johnny jokes, when Jaehyun sits up and hands him what they’ve begun to affectionately refer to as Remodel #4.

Much to Johnny’s horror, Jaehyun actually hmms. “It would look good on my apps,” he concedes, expression contemplative.

Johnny gags.

 

 

The suit ends up looking pretty nice, if not a little tacky. It’s full-body to keep his anonymity in tact, red on top and blue on the bottom with some more crawling up the sides and under the arms. The mask could probably use some work; Johnny ends up fishing material from the lab to adjust the eyes, but it does the trick. 

Johnny thinks that that’s that. Jaehyun’s work is done, and he can finally start… superheroing? (He’ll have to ask Mark what the verb is, probably.) But it’s right when he resolves himself to it that he realizes the next problem.

“If you promise to never tell anyone, will you help me design something?” Johnny asks Dongyoung, who clicks away from an off-task Illustrator window and turns his chair to face him.

“Depends. What do you need help with?”

Johnny gulps. “Um, I’m kind of. I kind of need to make devices? For my wrists?”

For a moment, Dongyoung narrows his eyes at him. Only then his face impossibly clears up, as if a light bulb had gone off in his head. “Oh, is this—is this that thing? Don’t worry, Jaehyun already told me about it. I’ll help you.”

“Wait, what?” Jaehyun has never informed him of any such breach of confidentiality. “What did Jaehyun tell you?”

“Don’t worry, Youngho,” Dongyoung repeats, rolling his eyes. Johnny thinks Jaehyun must be rubbing off on him. “We were at church, which you would know if you actually showed up even _half_ the time, and he asked me to get something out of his bag. I found—” he looks around, lowers his voice, ”—you know what, and he ended up telling me because I’m a trustworthy person. Seriously, your secret is safe.”

“Okay,” Johnny says warily, “fine.” Mostly he drops it because Dongyoung had thought to bring his truancy into the matter, which... well. Is _true_ , but still not very bros of him. In the end the situation’s urgency ends up winning over his sensibilities, and he falls ungracefully into the spinny chair next to Dongyoung, laptop already finding its way to the work table.

 

 

The problem: Johnny still can’t control his webbing for shit. He’s gotten better with not... shooting when he doesn’t want to (which, yes, laugh it up. It sounds gross even to him, and he’s the one who has to _deal with it)_ , but he can’t point it anywhere the way he wants it to. Not with accuracy, at least.

The solution: His and Dongyoung’s combined genius. Combined, that is, to create some webshooters. Hell, yeah.

 

 

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask Ten,” Dongyoung admits later. “I mean, I know I’m design captain, but he’s seriously not bad. 'S got a lot of artistic talent.”

Johnny rubs at his eyes. “I know,” he says. “I, um, haven’t told him. About any of this. He’s just—busy.” With theater. With things separate from Johnny’s own issues. “I couldn’t do that to him.”

“What, and you think I’m not?” Dongyoung demands, but he’s looking at Johnny a little funnily. Like there are certain things he’s reevaluating now, and Johnny’s about to ask when Dongyoung starts humming, an inconspicuous noise. He decides to let it go.

 

*

 

“I’m not talking to you. You betrayed me to Dongyoung.”

“Shut up,” says Jaehyun. He points at the wrist-shooters. “Look at these. You should be _thanking me_.”

Johnny glares at him. Grumbles, “Fine. You’re okay, I guess.” 

They’re standing on top of Jaehyun’s apartment building. Johnny is in the middle of undressing himself, costume underneath, when he turns to Jaehyun and says, “Okay, now let’s—stop laughing at me, dude! This is _serious_.” 

Then he finishes ripping away his shirt and jumps off the rooftop.

 

 

Trial run #1, Johnny doesn’t catch a sharp corner swinging by a skyscraper and crashes left side first into a brick building. It’s when he’s gingerly tending to his bruises that he learns he’s developed an advanced healing time on top of the pre-acknowledged spider-powers.

Trial run #2, he knocks out some asshole trying to rob a bank. It’s half by strength of superhuman power and half by stroke of luck, his heart threatening to pour out his rib cage when he webs the dude’s gun to a wall. 

As one might expect, someone takes a picture and it ends up all over Twitter. The reactions range from defamatory to awed to cautious, to everything in between:

_**The Daily Bugle** @TheDailyBugle - October 6  
Spider-CROOK! Swinging vigilante wreaks havoc at Bank of America: bit.ly/B5x4nUw_

_**Superheroes Weekly** @SuperheroesWeekly - October 6  
New superhero hopeful spotted in... Chicago? Masked man sporting spider-like powers takes the city by storm._ [Attached to the Tweet is a blurry photo of Johnny escaping the scene, lithe body twisting its way through a smashed window just as the police had begun to round the corner. Johnny is somehow on his way to becoming a wanted man, it seems.]

 

 

Trial run #6, Johnny saves Ten’s life, and this time he does more than knock the asshole out. (He doesn’t _kill_ the guy. Noses just break easy, okay? Johnny’s still getting the hang of all his super-strength.)

Johnny’s on his own that day. He knows that Ten is busy with after-school rehearsals again; they often run late and Johnny has stopped waiting up for him, since he trusts in Ten to be able to get home safely.

Except for tonight, apparently. 

He doesn’t know what to call it. It’s just this—this tingling sensation that alerts him to imminent kinds of danger. A spider-sense of sorts. (At least he thinks it is. Johnny didn’t have it before the bite, so he’s pretty sure it’s spider-related.) It’s little things, most of the time, like that time he’d knocked his mother away just as the coffee pot tipped over and almost splashed scalding hot all over her. Little things, but useful things to be able to avoid nevertheless.

So Johnny’s just swinging his way home (or rather, one block away from home—so he can sneak in with _stealth_ ), along the path he and Ten usually take. Sweeping around the city like Spider-Man does. It’s casual. But then his spider-sense starts niggling at him, creeping its way up the back of his neck, and that’s when Johnny looks down and sees it.

There’s a dude with a knife, and then there’s Ten.

“Fuck, no,” he says, and he swings forward and puts his foot down.

Literally.

As in, he brings his foot straight down and smashes the dude’s head right up against the gravel.

His parents taught him against violence, but, okay. Justice is the sweetest fruit. No one messes with his friends and gets away with it, et cetera, et cetera. Being Spider-Man on top of that is just an added bonus.

“Hi,” Ten squeaks, a little hysterical. “Um, thanks for helping me out back there.”

He definitely looks worse for wear, which is understandable considering the trauma he’s just been put through. Johnny is filled with a need to put his hands around Ten’s face and ask him if he’s okay; ask him if he needs help, if he wants Johnny to walk him home, since Johnny quite literally just saw his best friend (and light of his life, love of his life, whatever— _shut up_ , Jaehyun) nearly get mugged at knife-point. 

But when Johnny looks at his hands they’re just tight red stretches of flimsy spandex, and he realizes he’s not. He's not Johnny, to Ten. He’s just some dude in a weirdass costume. And Johnny thinks the whole thing about civilians not being able to recognize voices is probably a crock of shit, which means the words gets stuck in his throat, and instead of saying anything Johnny can only find it in himself to nod. 

Ten cocks his head at him, asks, “Are you okay?” 

Which. At that, Johnny swallows, flashes him an awkward thumbs up, and hightails his way out of there.

 

*

 

So that could have been smoother, definitely. Don’t superheroes generally get the last word? Have some sort of catchphrase on hand? Like, an _Avengers Assemble!_ for dramatic exits?

Cut him some slack, though. He’s still new at this.

 

*

 

If he starts keeping tabs on Ten that night, no one needs to know. Not even Jaehyun.

See, here’s the thing. Johnny is aware—has been since this all started, actually, that he isn’t your archetypal superhero. He wasn’t dragged into the business because he was just _so_ sickened by loss and the the misdeeds of humanity. It was half a joke and half Jaehyun egging him on with it, which basically means that it was entirely a joke.

Johnny isn’t perfect, and Johnny can be kind of selfish. Sometimes he only owns up to things halfway, sticking the truth behind biting sarcasm and your usual adolescent bluffs, and he knows it. 

Does he want to help people? Sure. But has he ever thought he could change the world, be the forward-thinker of a generation? Of course not, because that was never going to be Johnny. It goes: Johnny Suh, Illinois, 17, and Korean-American. Skinny and kind of on the geeky side. None of that has ever amounted to _superhero_.

He isn’t Amadeus Cho. 

Of course. He’s never been anything other than _Johnny_ , until the spider-powers.

And maybe he won’t be, because Spider-Man is still just an extension of himself at the end of the day. Maybe he can’t be that forward-thinker. But the reality is: Johnny doesn’t need an entire generation. Being a superhero is situational, is the thing. One person at a time. One city, one villain. And it’s fine—really, it is, to just want to keep who and what you love safe. 

Johnny loves his parents. Johnny loves Ten, and Jaehyun, and Mark, and Chicago. Johnny loves his city like, a Kanye tribute to it in Homecoming, Chi-town skyline twinkling multi-colored all over Lake Michigan. Like neck aches trying to take in all those goddamn skyscrapers, the ones that used to somehow make Johnny feel tiny but important at the same time. Like for once Chicago was really the place to _be_ , and no one or nothing could ever measure up to it.

So, yeah. Maybe he’s being selfish about it. 

When everything is beyond you, it’s kind of hard not to be. 

 

 

(The only difference between now and then, when he was eight, eleven, thirteen, is that where he used to look up at all those skyscrapers and wonder with fear gripping at his heart what it would be like to take that leap, make that jump, et cetera—Johnny looks down, and he lets go without a second thought.)

 

*

 

**8 Rules That Johnny Seo, Alias Spider-Man, Must Follow at ALL COSTS**

1\. First rule of Spider-Man club: You do not talk about Spider-Man.

2\. Second rule: You DO NOT—okay Jaehyun, we get it.

3\. No matter what happens, always leave the scene if the police gets there.

4\. Try not to make the police get there???

5\. Any Spider-Man-related messes made in Jaehyun’s room must and will be cleaned out within half an hour. (This is far from a precautionary measure, even if Jaehyun wishes it could be.)

6\. NO hanging upside-down outside Jaehyun’s window, especially after midnight. (The scrawl becomes increasingly frantic and illegible here.) IT FREAKS ME THE FUCK OUT.

7\. NO flying into The Bean. (Penciled in by Jaehyun after Johnny maybe, nearly created an indent the size of his body crashing into it at 3AM, trying to get the hang of the whole swinging-and-flying thing.) 

7a, an extension of Rule 7. Seriously. It’s a cultural monument. (There’s a _Questionable?_ scratched on later by Johnny that Jaehyun subsequently crosses out, unflappable iron fist gripping a red Bic with all the authority a barely-functioning Bic can muster.)

And finally, 8. NO saying “my spidey sense is tingling” (or variations thereof) when you disagree with something Jaehyun says. NO MORE, JOHNNY.

 

 

“Here,” goes Jaehyun, brandishing the paper with an air of finality. “There are your rules. Follow them. Love them. Breathe them. Three strikes and my room is officially off-limits for your deviant behavior.”

“I’m sorry my efforts toward the _greater good_ might tarnish your mom’s image of her sweet flower boy,” Johnny teases.

He takes the paper anyway.

 

*

 

Mid-December, Ten bowls into the two of them at lunch time, looking wide-eyed and nearly out of breath. 

“I got in,” he says. “I mean. I mean, NYU. Tisch. I’m in.”

“Dude!” Johnny and Jaehyun exclaim simultaneously. Ten worries at his bottom lip with a top row of teeth. It’s something he always does when he’s trying super, super hard to hide his apparent glee.

“Dude,” Johnny repeats, “you did it.” 

For Ten, NYU means—big things. New York City Things. 

Tisch means Broadway, and Broadway is all Ten has ever wanted.

Johnny hates to be selfish, but it’s then that a part of him startles at the realization that he and Jaehyun and Ten will probably part ways soon enough. He’s happy for Ten, for sure. Wholehearted, bone-deep and genuine endearment for all their accomplishments that melts its way through Johnny’s veins. But somehow it still grips him to know that their futures are beginning to emerge from divergent paths.

It’s not just Ten. Obviously. Johnny is part of it, too. Johnny of right now is a superhero and Ten is oblivious to it. Johnny of right now takes crime into his own goddamned hands. That’s a pretty big thing, if you ask him. 

So why is it that when he stares down the tenebrous tunnel that is his very future, he always manages to feel so impossibly small?

 

 

Johnny gets into UChicago, EA. He never ended up telling his parents that he’d applied, but he figures it’s a given—what with the whole double legacy, growing up in the pocket of Chicago’s suburbs thing.

He still doesn’t know what he wants to study, or where he’s headed. Nothing is set in stone.

It makes Johnny think back on New York. Those same big things. New York City Things, like the Avengers and what it means to be Spider-Man outside of it. In a city that doesn’t heave under the pressure of a thousand superhuman footsteps crawling from rooftop to rooftop, blasting villains right out their suits and hosting press conferences on matters of national security in skin-tight American flags of costumes.

A city that won’t have Ten by next year.

In the end, it’s always Ten.

 

*

 

Three days before the first semester ends, a monster rises from Chicago’s underground sewer system and pulverizes an office building into a cloud of concrete-tasting dust.

“Fuck this,” Johnny says, from where he’s trying to burn through five units of Calculus in a three-hour cram session. “I have _exams_.” 

Then he puts on the goddamned suit and gets down to business.

 

 

That’s the first sign, that there are some strange things happening in the Windy City.

Because—monsters? Really? This isn’t New York. Johnny still punches it back through the guts of wherever it came from, though. 

This time the police don’t even have to show up.

 

*

 

__

  
**City split over superhero debate**  
by Dan Griffin | March 21, 201X

Past being one target of a nationwide, superhuman terrorist crime-wave during the height of World War II, the city of Chicago has shown little interest in the presence of superheroes since. Now—despite a record-low approval rating on his handling of the city’s crime problem—Mayor Rahm Emanuel continues to place his faith in the Chicago Police Department, calling it “more effective” than the “meddling of superheroes, who lack foresight in their haste to correct what has never been theirs to fix.”

Whether these self-proclaimed superheroes make a base of Chicago may ultimately not be entirely of his own control. A masked vigilante who goes by the name of Spider-Man appears to be in town, having brought police forces to three crime scenes in the past two weeks alone. And wherever new talent goes, the Avengers are bound to follow. Iron Man was spotted just last week outside a Garrett Shop, stating “classified business” as his primary motive for visiting the city. The secrecy is noted, but one can easily draw a connection between the CEO of Stark Industries’ sudden appearance and the rising presence of our local webslinger, which has made way for widespread speculation.

When asked for their own thoughts on the situation, the citizens of Chicago bear divided opinions. “Superheroes is putting it generously, really,” said Marsha Ronald, age 54. “They’re more like glorified weapons, leaving behind all that wreckage every time they show their faces!”

Many adult respondents and senior citizens made similar contributions. Nevertheless, Chicago’s youth seems to hold a contrary opinion; they appear to be more in favor of superhuman presence, as well as the existence of a visible _Homo superior_ , or mutant, population. Of those interviewed, one high school student claimed, “I think a lot of older people are disillusioned with superheroes because they’re used to not trusting things that are different from them. My mom thought so too, actually. We were both visiting family there during the Battle of New York, and she only had a change of heart when Black Widow pulled me from under a collapsing building and saved my life.” Superheroes, many teens insist: they’re just like us.

In the end, whether Spider-Man is to be recognized as a superhero or just a walking, talking “glorified weapon” aside, a truth does remain constant. Chicago has a superhuman of its own now, and maybe something even bigger brewing behind the surface.

_dgriffin@tribpub.com_  
_Twitter @dgriffinchicago_

 

 

Because Johnny has never willingly read a newspaper in his entire life, he only learns about the article when Jaehyun forwards it to him through Messenger. _Congrats, vigilante_ , the text reads. _You’ve brought Iron Man to Chicago._

So, that’s a thing. 

He can’t help but wonder what would happen if Jaehyun’s fan club, which is actually poorly disguised as a Facebook community named “Jay Jung 4 Senior Class Prez” and is consistently exposed because a kid named Seokmin is in charge of it and likes to make Buzzfeed-style posts like, _10 Things We Love About Jay Jung to Brighten Up Your Day!_ , knew he happened to be _Spider-Man_ 's primary provider. 

Johnny is pretty sure he’d pay real money to see that one unfold.

 

 

(The first of the _10 Things_ , by the way, goes:

_**1\. A REAL LIFE ALIEN?**  
Our esteemed senior class president has famously stated that “school is fun,” which is final proof he functions on an entirely separate plane of existence and is not actually human. Seriously, he’s helped bring our debate club (as always, Go Spartans!) to a top-3 national rank at only age SEVENTEEN. One-seven. Feel bad about yourself yet? As likewise stressed-out high school students just trying to make it out of here alive, we are all dying to know his secret._

Attached below is a photo of him taken by the yearbook committee, in which he’s shown speaking at one of their school assemblies. Johnny assumes it’s meant to display Jaehyun’s supposed otherworldly features and effortless beauty. Or something.

The second bullet point makes generous use of the hashtag #BAEhyun, so Johnny closes the tab there.)

 

*

 

Like with most things, time ends up catching up with him and biting him right in the ass.

It’s not Johnny’s fault that Ten is prone to accidents. Really. But _maybe_ he could have been more subtle about the whole Spider-Man thing.

Because—well.

“So,” Ten is saying, conversational. He sets down his tray and sweeps his eyes around the table nervously, like he’s still stewing on the words. “I think Spider-man might be following me?”

Mark chokes on his sandwich. Jaehyun makes a curious little noise in the back of his throat before fixing his eyes right on Johnny.

“ _Huh_ ,” is all Johnny pulls off.

“What makes you say that?” Jaehyun presses. He sounds, infuriatingly enough, amused; Johnny can’t exactly make a throat-slash gesture without it going unnoticed, but he hopes the urgency in his glare conveys it appropriately.

“Well, whenever something bad happens he always seems to be around to, like, protect me? And I can always tell it’s him because his costume is really flashy. Do you think he knows that the red and blue doesn’t help him blend in at all?”

Right. Because Captain America’s red and blue is for the battlefield, brazen and heroic. Spider-Man’s red and blue slinks through shadows, hiding in the crevices. It could never be the same, really.

“I’m sure there’s a creative reason behind it,” Mark assuages, just when Jaehyun is starting to look a little offended at the attack of his creative vision.

Mark is a good kid. Johnny is going to miss him next year.

 

 

When his suit disappears from his backpack that day, only to show up the next with the blues dyed two shades darker, Johnny is a good enough best friend that he mentions nothing to Jaehyun but a quick, “Thanks.”

 

*

 

Here’s an image for the photobooks.

It’s late March. Johnny is hanging upside-down, back pressed against the wall of a deserted alley. There’s a bruise blossoming down the left side of his face. From barely ten feet away stands Ten, who smiles, and then looks Johnny right in the eyes. 

Or rather, the lenses. Whatever.

It’s gotten dark now, and Johnny looks back through the slow flickering of an orange streetlight, rain cascading down his suit all frantic, in these quick, fat pearls that are so Chicago. 

Quite frankly, it’s kind of uncomfortable. 

Ten starts walking toward him—full-body wringing of his hands again. So very Ten, and Johnny’s stomach hurts at the sight, grounding him to the spot the way Ten always manages to. Technically, he could flit his way out of here at any moment. Really. It would be so easy. He and his powers are one now, some greater metaphor about him spinning his web over and over again and nesting all in it, extended tête-à-tête with the spiders that grow in and out and around his bones.

It’s Ten though, so Johnny does not.

“Oh. It’s you again,” Ten says. He reaches a hand out, tentative, like he’s about to pet an easily-startled dog. “Spider-Man. You’re always saving me.”

To which Johnny shrugs, biting on his lip to tamp down a retort. _And you have a knack for getting in trouble, so what can I do about it?_ , he doesn’t say. 

“Whenever I ask you something you never give me any answers,” Ten whines. “Are you going to leave again this time?” 

And, ugh. He’s just—he’s so _good_. Johnny shakes his head no after an off-beat of silence, unable to help himself, and he wonders what it would mean to tell him. Whether—whether the secret is even worth keeping. 

Jaehyun knows. _Dongyoung_ knows. Ten knows he’s been looking out for him, at least. Had even thought to tell the three of them about it. What is Johnny trying to protect Ten from, even? 

From himself? _Hah._ He’s not an Avenger. He’s just a teenage boy with a mask. A teenage boy who calls himself some sort of man when he can barely deal with icicles of sorry excuses for webs and being buffeted into every existing vertical surface come December, all because God once said: let there be Chicago, and now let there be Chicago winters.

He sucks in a sharp breath. The blood’s all rushing to his head and Ten is right there, one single graze of the hand away, and that’s when Johnny decides to let go.

“Hey,” he says, and Ten freezes. Just the way he’d expected.

When are the comic books going to get it right, already?

“Huh,” Ten mumbles under his breath. He frowns, more out of confusion than anything. “Uh, hi.”

He’s got his hands stretched out still, hand suspended soft and gentle above Johnny’s head like some sort of interpretative dance. Although—he must catch the way Johnny is looking because suddenly he startles, bringing himself back into motion. Then he steadies himself, reaches over, and he slowly, very slowly, drags down the edge of Johnny’s mask.

This time—

Ten stares him right in the eyes. Not in the lenses. Or whatever.

“Were you expecting anything else?” Johnny teases, drinking in the way Ten’s eyes widen and the way his breath hitches, barely audible but just loud enough for Johnny to catch.

“Nah. I kind of had you at ‘hey,’” Ten giggles, shaking his head. “But seeing is believing.” 

Johnny spreads his arms out at that. A, _well, here you have me. See all you want._

And Ten starts laughing, the hand-clapping type, water trickling all the way down and around the corners of his mouth. Brings his hands to rest on Johnny’s cheeks, the way Johnny wishes he could have with Ten, all those weeks ago. “I gotta say,” Ten admits. “I was starting to wonder why Spider-Man was so interested in me. But you know, Johnny: there are easier ways to tell a boy you like him.”

“Yeah?” Johnny closes his eyes. Kudos to him for the most extended and anti-climactic confession of a lifetime, he guesses.

He figures it’s been ten years in the making anyway. Johnny wants to tell Ten about that time in New York, under those Broadway billboards. The lights had fallen all over Ten and Johnny had felt in all of his sixteen-year-old kind of visceral a need to kiss the cherry red of his smiling mouth. A need to cup his thumbs over the neon blue and gold and pink of his face and the other colors too scintillating for the tongue to trace, fingers clasped as one and heart beating against heart. It had been grand, like the city. New York makes you think crazy things, really, and Johnny felt he could have almost told him then. Or after all those walks home, or on the nights Ten would lie on Johnny’s bed with his eyes soft and force Johnny to tickle him off of it.

Ten and Johnny. Just like the superhero schtick, there’s never been a catalyst for it. It’s not like one day in kindergarten Ten shared his favorite crayons with him and Johnny was like: yeah, this is it. He’s the one. Or that something happened between the stretch of middle to high school for Johnny to realize the way he looked at Ten was a more-than-friends thing. An everything thing. Ten is just—what Johnny _knows_. Ten is what he’s always known, and the slow drag of it as it snowballs into something bigger than Johnny’s heart can handle is exactly what being Spider-Man is like.

So maybe that’s why Johnny’s never known how to voice this. It’s always felt so absurdly natural, which being a superhero is very much not. If only Johnny had known he needed that contrast to have it made clear.

Johnny brings his right hand to rest on top of Ten’s, steadying himself. There are a million different things he could say right now. He settles on, “Care to show me?”

Putting the ball in Ten’s court, you see.

“How about this,” Ten says with a bite of his lips. “In a moment, you’re going to start from the top, and you’re going to tell me everything. But for now—” he breathes in, deep, fingers pressed insistent, “—I’m going to kiss you. Okay?”

Now or never. 

Well, maybe not never. But definitely now.

“Yeah, Ten, sounds good to—mmpfh.”

It’s raining. Johnny is hanging upside-down, and it’s raining, and there is water getting in his nose. But Johnny does not care because Johnny is a literal superhero. He’d punch twenty more monsters and twenty more bank-robbing assholes to just be stuck in this instant, held still by Ten’s hands and the press of his lips slotted over Johnny’s, the feeling just—so right. So sweet and hungry at the same time.

Johnny isn’t perfect, sure. But this is. Rain and bruise and the dark of the night and everything.

 

*

 

Later, Johnny brings his fingers to linger at where Ten had kissed him and feels a lot like the teenager he is. He thinks it’s a certain kind of funny and sad that for all the malicious _Daily Bugle_ articles written about his moniker, Johnny still ends up here, in bed, thinking about—ugh. The _cheese_. Thinking not about the havoc he’s going to wreak next but about Ten, and about how their first kiss had been ideal in that Ten hadn’t even had to reach up to kiss him.

Perks of dating Spider-Man, really.

Johnny brings his face to his pillow and groans.

 

*

 

“There you guys are,” Ten’s saying, rounding the hallway corner.

Jaehyun brings his index finger to his lips and glances pointedly at a gaggle of students across the hall. “Shhhh.” 

“Mark is with his _friends_ ,” Johnny coos.

Ten follows their gazes to where Mark is standing, currently involved in a passionate discussion with five other kids. Three boys, two girls. One of them has a smile that’s mostly teeth and eyes that crinkle liberally, and Ten can’t help but marvel at how small they make freshmen these days. Ten is fairly certain he looked nothing like that when _he_ was fifteen. 

Some of them Jaehyun knows vaguely from church, but Mark always gets embarrassed talking about who he hangs out with outside the three of them. “Dude,” he’ll whine. “It’s like my mom asking me how my day’s been,” and Johnny will finally spare him the embarrassment and badger him about his classes, because grousing about academics is a universally accepted constant for fourteen to fifteen-year-olds.

“Black Widow is fucking _hot_ ,” one of Mark’s ninth grade friends is saying.

“Okay,” Mark responds, wrinkling his nose. “But that’s clearly not what we’re debating here. Jean Grey is literally an Omega Level Mutant.”

One of the girls, Herin, nods and goes, “Exactly. The X-Men could take the Avengers any day.” 

From where they’re standing, Johnny sniffles. Today feels suddenly unsurpassably momentous. “He’s transitioned so well,” he says, bringing a hand to his chest. 

Jaehyun starts laughing. Then he breathes out a sigh and stretches his arms over his head, glancing over at the two of them. “Why do I feel like we’re finally getting to watch our son grow up?” 

“Time flies, huh,” Ten remarks, and it’s a bit sad. He’s not sure how a debate over which superhero team would kick the most superhero butt has managed to make him emotional. This is Mark’s doing, he reckons.

Mark—who has finally caught them hanging around and is now advancing on them, expression peevish. 

“What are you guys _doing here_ ,” he says, in the same way a teenage boy does when his mom starts taking too many photos at his school-mandated event. “Go _away_.”

Ten giggles. Jaehyun says, “Ahh, puberty,” and lets out another nostalgic sigh.

Then they run.

 

*

 

_**Ten Leechaiyapornkul** @TNTChittaphon - April 10  
Like urban fantasy? Come see the Theatre Department’s modernization of A Midsummer’s Night Dream from April 25-26 at 7:00 PM! _

_**Ten Leechaiyapornkul** @TNTChittaphon - April 10  
More info on tickets and location can be found here: fb.me/42BQNcatr _

 

*

 

April is the month everything goes to shit.

For Johnny, at least. 

Not Jaehyun. Jaehyun gets into Yale.

To make it abundantly clear, Johnny doesn’t actually believe superheroes exist in a vacuum. He understands that the Avengers have been in town either for him or for whatever is behind the concept of him, which is also definitely something he’s put thought into.

He just never thought it would come up like this.

Is this how Johnny is going to die? Bleeding out on the roof of an apartment building by the hands of an anthropomorphic scorpion?

Hah. A spider and a scorpion walk onto a rooftop. The spider says, “What happened to you, man?”, and the scorpion knocks the fucking wind right out of him.

“Oh, shit,” Johnny gasps. “Dude, watch the ribs.”

“You have some real nerve parading yourself around like this, ‘Spider-Man,’” Scorpion-dude hisses. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve been causing for me?”

“Uh, maybe you could enlighten me instead of trying to kill me?” Johnny asks. 

Scorpion-dude glares at him. He’s just. He’s _hideous_ , clearly some experiment gone wrong, body entirely green and scaly with a long metal tail that spirals onto itself roboting behind him.

“Why are you fighting battles that have nothing to do with you? You think—just because one of my experiments got to you, that you’re entitled to any of this?”

Johnny gets up, coughing. “Wait, what?” 

This would be where Johnny realizes that Scorpion-dude is, in fact, whatever is behind the concept of him.

 _Scorpion-dude._ Who is clearly not listening to him, stuck in the rush of his own long-winded spiel.

“—Chicago was supposed to be it for me. I tried New York, but the weather isn’t the same, and there are too many of those Avengers on the lookout for any real developing. Chicago makes for better wind-resistance, better quiet. But then this idiot gets himself bit after I let go of _one_ spider, which—wasn't even my fault. There was turbulence. The roads are so much bumpier here. And then I’m here assuming that it’ll be no big deal, but then this asshole suddenly decides that he needs to be Chicago’s first superhero? Needs to bring exactly who I was trying to avoid to town? When the first time I tried this experiment I ended up looki—”

Johnny punches him in the face. God, do all villains talk so much? 

It turns out that that might have been a bad idea though, since Scorpion-dude staggers back, expression furious. Then he brings his tail forward and rounds his way onto Johnny. 

“Look at that,” he says. “You’re nothing more than a kid, Spider-Man. I _made_ you. You can never destroy me."

Before Johnny can react, Scorpion-dude slams the bulb of his metallic tail right against Johnny’s side and sends him flying. Again. Johnny’s head hits the gravel in a way it probably shouldn’t, and he finds himself faintly aware of the blood trailing down his face. His everything is beginning to hurt.

Scorpion-dude stands on top of him, ridiculous and menacing in a way only a 7-foot metallic green man with a robotic tail can. Johnny groans, the feeling traveling all the way down his bones and leaving him gasping. “Fuck,” he spits, throat hoarse. His vision is beginning to flicker out, and oh—maybe this really is it. Maybe he really is just some ki—

He blacks out. Of course he does.

 

 

“Hey, kid,” says a voice. Johnny’s on the rooftop when he comes to, jostled by the voice and probably still bleeding his way right to death, muscles screaming and head pulsing the way Johnny assumes a concussion might cause it to. 

The voice’s face comes into focus, and, well. It's not exactly a face, upon second glance. More like a red and yellow metal mask. With glowing eyes. Johnny is not necessarily the superhero enthusiast Mark is, but anyone would know it, Johnny’s very moments away from death be damned.

Johnny coughs, ribs screaming with the movement. 

He manages to wheeze out, “Oh, you’re Iron Man," and then he promptly passes the fuck out again.

 

 

In the end, the Avengers take care of it.

Lesson 1 of being a teen superhero: You don’t become one without losing every now and then. 

Lesson 2: Sometimes you’ll wake up in a hospital bed with Iron Man staring back at you, and that’s okay, too.

Johnny is alive and much more awake this time, at least. His muscles are still aching and Johnny is kind of afraid to move through the pain, so he just lies there and watches as Iron Man stands by his bed and fiddles with his wrist-shooters.

“Did you make your costume?” Iron Man says. He sounds impressed. “Also, before you say anything: call me Mr. Stark.”

“No, uh—my friend, Jay. He’s the brain behind all of this.” 

“Really? And the webshooters?”

Johnny flushes. “Those are on me. And—and my other friend. We’re in robotics together, so he helped me design them. My webbing is all organic, but the shooters help me with, uh… accuracy issues. And I’ve also engineered parts of the suits for additional enhancements.”

Robotics basically runs through his veins, now; he could go on about his work forever if staring into Tony Stark’s pensive billionaire face weren’t so damn intimidating.

“Kid,” Stark says. He sets the devices down. “You should give yourself a little credit. These are pretty crude; I can help you upgrade later, if you want. But it certainly does the trick. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

“No offense or anything,” Johnny says, coughing, “because, you know. Thank you. But I _did_ just get my ass handed to me by a giant scorpion dude.”

Stark claps his hands at that. “Ah, yes. Scorpion. That’s what I have to talk to you about, actually.” He pulls out one of the chairs in the room and sits down, putting his hands in his lap.

An explanation, finally; Johnny’s only been waiting since September. He pushes himself up and sits his back against the hospital wall.

“Scorpion’s been a problem of ours in New York, too. I wasn’t sure if you’d know that, since you’re based in Chicago. There’s a kid—well, maybe I won’t get into that right now. But you’re not the only one who’s been affected by his experiments.”

“Really?” asks Johnny, before he can help himself.

“Sure, kid. His name’s Miles. Way too young to be a superhero though, so S.H.I.E.L.D. has him in training. ‘S why you’re technically the first Spider-Man.” He draws in a quick breath. “Anyway! Back to Scorpion. We’ve been investigating from time to time for the past month, and it turns out he dropped off the map after we blew up his lab in New York, and now he’s been developing all sorts of bad things in an underground base in Chicago. Maybe you found that out already. All those monsters you’ve been killing—yes, we’ve been keeping tabs on you. Don’t look so surprised. We’re all superheroes, here. So, right. All those monsters. Those have been from him.”

“Oh,” Johnny says, nodding. Finally something that makes half-sense.

“Sorry we got to you so late. We, uh. Don’t take this the wrong way, kid. But we were tracking you under the assumption that he’d get to you eventually. It drew him out of his base long enough for us to take care of the problem.”

Johnny shrugs. It’s how business goes, after all. “‘S okay. At least I heal fast.”

“So we’ve been made aware. It’s impressive.”

For a minute, Johnny just breathes in and out, feeling his limbs rest. It’s strange that everything happens like this: the spider, Scorpion, the Avengers, Iron Man. He’s not sure what he’s meant to feel or say about it. 

Stark rubs at his chin, the movement alerting Johnny to him again. 

“Johnny, right?”

Johnny nods.

“Okay. I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest about it. What made you decide to become Spider-Man?”

“Well,” Johnny says, and there are so many revelations planted in his brain, retrospections he’s spent months indulging in. But Johnny finds that they’re all beyond the scope of what he’s willing to share, because Iron Man isn’t here to hear the fruits of his adolescent recollections. “I got my powers, didn’t I? And what kind of person would I be if I didn’t use some sort of greater good toward the greater good?”

Stark hums. It’s like that shade of pensive is permanently fixed on his face, and Johnny resists the urge to squirm a little at the sight, but at least he seems marginally more satisfied. “You’re graduating this year, aren’t you? Have you considered New York? The Avengers?”

“Chicago is my city,” retorts Johnny, only borderline querulous.

“One boy can’t keep all of Chicago going,” says Stark. “It’s tough, but it’s the truth. New York—look. We have S.H.I.E.L.D. We have upgrades, and we have the technology. You can be something bigger there. Maybe that’s what you’re destined for.”

Johnny sighs. Deep down, he’s always known this. Chicago isn’t New York: never has been, never will be. Illinois is Hank McCoy and Kitty Pryde, and that’s where it ends.

“I’m going to think about it,” is all Johnny says.

“Good,” Stark tells him, standing up. “I’ll leave you to rest now. You took a pretty good beating.”

Johnny leans back, and he feels the exhaustion wash over him again. He wants to sleep in for another day, or even another week. Another month, just letting his body heal itself from all this soreness. 

Then he watches _Iron Man_ , of all people, make his way toward the door, and that’s when Johnny realizes his opportunity.

“Hey, uh. Mr. Stark,” Johnny says. “Before you go.”

Stark turns back to look at him. “Yeah, kid?”

“Could I maybe bother you for a signature? I have a friend who’s a fan.”

It’ll be a, _I know we’re all leaving for college now, but keep it up in high school, all right?_ kind of gift.

 

 

In the murky hours he spends strapped to an IV, slipping in and out of consciousness as he breathes in the fumes of hospital-room disinfectant, Johnny thinks a lot about his future.

He remembers last May 1st, when some sophomore on their robotics team had asked Taeil with stars in his eyes, “Where are you going for college?” And Taeil went on, deadpan, about a 1500-person liberal arts school in honest-to-God the middle of nowhere.

“Um,” Dongyoung asked, “didn’t you get into MIT?”

To which—of course—their programming captain scoffed and said, “Don’t worry about those kinds of things, Dongyoungie. Am I going to find myself at MIT? Am I going to be someone separate, someone different? How many robotics captains do you know who go on to study math or computer science there? Those are the type of questions you should wonder during your college process. As long as I continue to challenge and question myself, I’m set.”

The sophomore looked kind of crushed then, but somehow the stars had yet to go out, which Johnny figured that had always been one of Taeil’s stranger but everlasting charms. “So, what are you studying?” He asked, sounding nervous about it.

“Applied Music, probably,” Taeil responded, nodding sagely. “With a minor in Creative Writing. But it’s all subject to change.”

That had been Taeil. Some sort of painless overachiever who was always all over five different things at once. Who hadn’t been afraid to follow a different dream. 

And, okay. UChicago sure as hell isn’t MIT. But _Chicago_ is Chicago. And giving up everything you know to pursue something—some greater thing. Something that you feel is right, all those future unknowns be damned. That’s respectable, isn’t it? Maybe that’s the first step to growing up. Sacrifice making the heart sturdier, or something.

 

 

As long as sacrifice doesn’t break it, Johnny will take it. 

 

 

The next time Johnny wakes up, the first thing he sees is Ten. The other boy has a hoodie thrown over skintight green leggings, eyebrow furrowed in concern, all fidgety and on-edge from where he’s seated. Johnny mumbles a _hello_. At that, Ten looks up and immediately jettisons off his chair, hand clenched around his phone. He brings the other to hit gently at Johnny’s shoulder. “I told you not to get yourself killed, you idiot!”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” asks Johnny. 

Somehow, Ten makes his glare look soft and judgy at the same time. “ _Barely,_ ” he mutters. “And if your parents knew about this, you definitely wouldn’t be. You only got spared because I asked Iron M—uh, Mr. Stark, to cover it up for you.”

Johnny coughs out a laugh. It feels like shit. “Thank you,” he says. He’s tracking the lines of Ten’s face, and Ten stares back at him with those big, brown eyes, the feeling of some unspoken question hitting Johnny like a sack of bricks. 

It’s on impulse, really, that the next thing he blurts out is, “I’m going to New York.”

Ten looks at him. Like, really looks. “Um. Right now?”

“No, like.” He clears his throat. Words. He can do those. “For school. I’m going to NYU.”

“What?” Ten opens his mouth, wide, and lets out a loud squawk of disbelief. “Really?”

“Yeah. I, uh, applied pretty last-minute. Impulse decision. But I think that’s happening.”

“Would you… you… you’d choose NYU over UChicago?” Ten asks. The, _For me, for this?_ goes unspoken. He sits at the edge of Johnny’s hospital bed, the movement ginger probably because he’s scared he might jostle Johnny and manage to break a few extra bones. Not, Johnny surmises, that there are many left that would be new to the experience.

“I don’t think Chicago needs me anymore,” Johnny admits. “You know, for those first few months I was willing to believe that this would just be—a flashpoint of sorts. But my powers aren’t going to go away, and Spider-Man isn’t going to go away. If that means I have to reconfigure my future around my new identity, then so be it.”

Ten sighs, a mix of resigned and endeared. “Yeah,” he says. “I get it. Also, I’m not sure I want to be a billion different states away from you if you’re going to go out and get yourself almost-killed like this, Spider-boy.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “I’ll try to stay safer just for you, babe.”

Ten slaps him. Very, very softly. His cheeks are flushed red and Johnny is gripped with how much he loves the boy in front of him.

"Us and Jaehyun, huh,” Johnny breathes. “Tri-state better watch out.”

He tilts forward to get a hold on Ten’s arm, to lean in a little closer, and that’s when the green tights register.

“Wait, are those—your play—dude, what day is it?”

Ten coughs into his fist. “Um. April 26?”

“What?!” Johnny exclaims, sitting up in an instant. And okay, ow. Bad idea. “You mean I missed your show already?”

“It’s fine, Johnny,” Ten says with ease. “You nearly died. I care more about your health than my last high school play.”

“No, dude. Seriously. I’m Spider-man, didn’t you know?”

“I may have been made aware,” answers Ten, smiling. He’s biting his lip, and Johnny wants nothing more than to know whether he’s thinking of that day in the rain, with the kiss.

“Right, so I heal fast. When’s your second show?”

“Uh,” Ten startles, pulling out his phone to check the time. “In thirty minutes, actually. I should get going. I missed the second half of rehearsal to come here.” But he looks nervous as he says it, moving his eyes back and forth from where his phone flashes 6:27 to the bruising on Johnny’s face.

“I mean it,” Johnny reassures him. “Go ahead. I’ll meet up with you there.”

“What? What do you mean go ah—Johnny. _Stay here._ You’re still hurt.”

“And I _told_ you, I heal fast.” Maybe he hasn’t completely, but this is worth it, isn’t it? 

Ten groans. “You’re impossible.”

“You love me,” Johnny laughs. “Go, seriously. I don’t want to be the reason you’re late to your last twelfth grade performance.”

He just has one order of business to take care of first.

 

*

 

Johnny makes it to the auditorium mere minutes before the doors close, hand rubbing mindlessly at his ribcage where his injuries are starting to protest.

The show is perfect. Ten is brilliant and shining and everything Johnny has already known him to be, face both dramatic and playful under the harsh stage lights and thick eyeliner, mouth quirking into the air of mischievousness Puck is meant to flaunt.

“Johnny, _no_ ," Ten says the moment he sees him, when the show is over and the actors have gone out to greet their families and friends.

“Johnny, yes," Johnny says. He holds out the bouquet.

“This is what you crossed town for? Some flowers?” Ten asks, but he’s smiling. He takes the bouquet: an assortment of roses and lilies that have seen better days, beaten up from all the web-slinging Johnny had to do to make it on time. 

Johnny is bruised and aching still, his cheekbones purpled. There’s blood drying around his mouth. It’s kind of gross but Johnny grins through it, and he feels alive.

“What kind of boyfriend do you think I am?” he demands.

Ten snorts. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, but he pecks Johnny on the cheek anyway. They make a collective decision to ignore Jaehyun’s exaggerated gagging. Mark finds it cute but disconcerting, in a _I love my parents, but do they have to do this in front of me?_ way.

Ten and Johnny. They’ve never needed a catalyst for this. Johnny breathes Ten in, all of him, and thinks that they’ve always been complete. Nothing’s changed since he was eight, eleven, thirteen. The only difference between now and then is that where he used to look into Ten’s eyes and wonder with fear gripping at his heart what it would be like to lose himself in them, take that leap, make that jump, et cetera—Johnny looks down. Always, always down. Stares right into the cherry red of Ten’s smiling mouth, and he leans in without a second thought.

 

*

 

They go to prom, of course. Johnny buys Ten a corsage and Jaehyun nearly pisses himself laughing. Jaehyun brings Dongyoung, although he swears otherwise, and they both blush profusely whenever they so much as look at each other. Johnny and Ten find it amusing, confusing, and kind of sadly adorable all at once, and they wish Mark were here to call the three of them old and gross.

Underneath his suit, Johnny has a much tighter, much redder one on.

“Gotta be ready for anything,” Johnny justifies, from where he's sipping on a questionably apple-flavored soda concoction.

“I hate you,” says Ten. He's grinning. It's a beautiful thing, always is, and Johnny gives one back, as natural as habit.

Johnny holds a hand out. “Slow dance?” he asks, when the music turns.

“For you?” Ten teases, even though he’s already bringing his arms to rest on the breadth of Johnny’s shoulders. “I don’t see why not.”

They walk toward the dance floor, Johnny's arms firm around Ten's waist. And Ten—Ten is brighter than any theater light, ablaze with a flame to his heart that burns hotter than those Time Square, New-York-magnificent billboards in the dark of the night. God, New York. Johnny’s heart twinges. 

The future is theirs now, isn’t it?

**Author's Note:**

> everything i touch turns to coming of age orz. also, in case you were wondering: this fic was started way before the nct x ca:cw stuff, so it's completely unrelated! i'm not satisfied with several parts of this fic—especially the beginning few—but i hope it flows consistently enough anyway x___x


End file.
